"400" people (as claimed by the author) gathered to listen to 20 anti nuke activists, with no one actually involved in the industry.

This is as balanced as a baptist revival is on evolution, and apparently less well attended.

So far the toll from the Tsunami is about 20 000 none of whom have died from radiation

Worrying about nuclear accidents is the job of nuclear engineers. For everybody else, the concerns pale into insignificance beside the impacts of climate change and the normal causes of cancer.

E.g., over the past 25 years, Ukraine+Russia+Belarus have had about 14 million cancers, with about 6000 thyroid cancers due to Chernobyl with very few deaths. If these countries had had Australian cancer rates, they'd have had 20 million cancers. They might have Chernobyl radiation to worry about but we have sunshine and BBQs and buckets of red meat which are far, far more dangerous.

But all these pale beside the starvation of millions together with weather disasters from a changing climate. The French have been generating electricity for 80 gm-CO2/kwh for two decades while we generate 850 gm-co2/kwh and the Germans (with all their wind and solar) are still stuck at 450 gm-CO2/kwh. Put simply the anti-nuclear movement has made our climate problem far far worse than it would otherwise be because they have foisted their obsession with trivia onto the general population.

The anti-nuclear movement, in stopping the nuclear roll out of the 1970s and 80s has done huge damage to the climate and their continued preference for fossil fuels to nuclear (as seen currently in Germany and Japan) has accelerated our problems.

Shadow minister is correct a totally unbalanced article. Direct evidence of adverse effects at low dose or low dose exposure rates, if any are well below the level of detectability by current epidemiological methodology and statistical theory.

The “Linear No Threshold hypothesis as used by ICRP is of course simple to understand and over the decades has provided a satisfactory model for regulation worldwide. It is however, important to realise that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever to support LNTH.

In spite of authoritative advice that the LNTH should not be used in a predictive sense, people still do so and make the most exaggerated claims of death and/or disease on the basis of an unproven and unprovable theory. It is even possible that some anti-nuclear groups have their own idiosyncratic way of going through the entrails to make alarmist predictions.

Regrettably, the only discernible result of anti-nuclear hysteria is a community burden of psychological disorder such as depression or anxiety states.

Regardless of the contents of this essay the one thing that you can be absolutely sure of is is that the relevant government and industry "authorities" via their public relations spin machines will not be telling the truth about the situation.
Google Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network.

One name sticks out in the list of conference participants, Dr David Brenner. He's an expert's expert with serious credentials. My first thought was: "What the hell is he doing at this symposium?"

Here's a New York Times piece which features Brenner trying to inject
some rationality into the fear mongering during the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima failures:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/earth/29brenner.html

I emailed Brenner asking him whether he agreed with various of the positions of Caldicott on Fukushima. His reply was prompt and clear: "Participating in a symposium does not imply agreeing with the other speakers there, or the organizer."

and you will note from the NYT article that he does support "safe nuclear power" ... so should we all.

For people wanting to understand how it can be that experts can predict increased cancer risks while simultaneously saying that the increases will be too small to detect, here's my best efforts at explaining the apparent contradiction:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/3/22/energy-markets/exploding-australias-nuclear-delusion

Geoff Russell,

I thank you for your references and I would like to develop your analogy of dropping a rock further. In this I will be referring to papers by Professor Otto Raabe. Two quotes from your paper are a good place to start.

“Imagine you drop a rock in a nice flat pond. If your physics is good, you can calculate the maximum height of the ripple as it expands across the water.”

“But the Fukushima radiation wasn't like that. It wasn't one burst, one rock, it was more like a handful of gravel and the ripple calculations were done as if it was a rock.”

The first quote is a reasonable approximation to the situation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A burst of radioactive exposure at a high dose rate (1mSv delivered in less than a second is a high dose rate). Current regulations and LNTH are based on this data. According to Raabe this is cancer promoting. An initial developing cancer is given a nudge on to the next stage carcinogenesis by the burst. By and large the types of cancer in the bomb exposed population was similar to the distribution in the general population, but of course manifesting at a younger age.

The second quote illustrates chronic exposure. Otto Raabe studied beagle dogs. Evans completed his work on the “radium painters” in the 1970s. In the radium workers increased incidence of bone cancer was noted only after a cumulative skeletal dose of Ra-226 exceeding 10 Gy (ten Gray). This demonstrates that cancer induction is not a linear function. There is sharp threshold at 10Gy. The time period for cancer induction may well exceed the natural life span of
the subject.

Raabe OG. Health Phy 2011; 101: 84-93.

In reply to Geoff Russell.
It is quite revealing that he thinks that the question of nuclear accidents is the province of nuclear engineers only. That's the first time I have seen this view spelt out so baldly. It seems that nuclear advocates really believe that radiologists, epidemiologists, ecologists, marine biologists, medical radiation experts - really should not be listened to, have no real expertise on the question of nuclear radiation.
Yet surprisingly, he does pick out Dr David Brenner as an expert.

But what Brenner actually did say at this symposium was that in the case of low dose radiation, the cancer risk for an individual is small,but the risk for the population at large is significant.
Russell also seems to be under the curious impression that if there are so many deaths from cancer anyway, just adding a few more doesn't matter.

The population risk IS significant. Of any 30 young people developing cancer in 20 years' time in Fukushima, just one of those cases would be caused by the low dose radiation experienced as a child. For every parent - they could wonder "Was my child that one?"
David Brenner did not necessarily disagree with the other speakers, Brenner gave a very welcome explanation of the difficulties facing epidemiologists.
Like David Lochbaum, Brenner said he was in favour of nuclear power. It's just that both raised very valid questions about the measures needed to ensure safety - (very expensive measures that might be unaffordable)

Noel, did you even read the NYT article quoting Brenner?

Of the 150,000 evacuees, several hundred have already needlessly died prematurely. They didn't need to. All 150,000 could have been busily rebuilding their lives after the tsunami. During their lifetime about 60,000 will get cancer from the BIG cancer causes. The evacuation has killed hundreds to prevent what? 1 cancer? 5 cancers? The evacuation would have to prevent hundreds of cancers just to break even. But Brenner and other experts have estimated (not just claimed) that such a large number is simply not credible given the low level of radiation doses.

Those evacuees were killed for nothing. The evacuation was a tragedy for no good reason. Have you no compassion for these people?

But even worse, far, far worse than anti-nuclear fear mongering killing these people is the very real possibility of the starvation and deaths of millions or tens of millions because of climate change.

We could have all been where the French are twenty years ago if not for the anti-nuclear movement stopping the nuclear roll out and allowing the climate to deteriorate.

The anti-nuclear movement has cost the climate twenty years and counting.

Again in reply to Geoff Russell
The evacuation after the Fukushima nuclear accident WAS necessary, just as the evacuation after the Chernobyl accident was necessary. So far, the discussion in these comments as been all about the risks of cancer, following the immediate disaster. Here we are talking about external emitters of radiation - i.e. the rays that go straight through the body, can strike the nuclei of cells and cause a change leading to later cancer.
But the evacuation also has to do with the internal emitters, such as cesium 137, and iodine 131. These, deposited in water, soil, and blowing around in air, can enter the drinking water, and food chain, and then enter the body, There they can sit, for years, decades, continually emitting radiation.
That is why the Chernobyl area is still uninhabitable, That is why people still can't eat wild boars in parts of Europe, as these animals are still ingesting the internal emitters.
And anyway, the Fukushima reactors are far from stable - it's all a bit of a tightrope operation in trying to stabilise them, and their still dangerous radioactive trash cooling ponds. Another explosion could happen.

Noel, repeating something EVEN IN UPPER CASE, doesn't make it true.

Have a look here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/05/02/would-sir-like-a-caesium-salad-with-his-steak/

Can you see the pictures of dairy protein shredding the DNA of cells? And the Cesium 137, the dredded internal emitter? Can you spot the difference? The way to tell if something is dangerous isn't to judge how scary its description is. You need to check the numbers. The body count. Cs-137 has contaminated a huge area of Turkey, for example, as Helen Caldicott says. Avoid Turkish food she says. INTERNAL EMITTERS! But, 25 years later the Turkish cancer rates are half those in Australia. Why? Because bodies can and do have internal emitters for decades without any adverse consequences. Can one cs-137 atom cause cancer? Theoretically, yes. Theoretically, just one mouthful of milk can damage your DNA and cause cancer. One potassium-40 atom from almost any food on the planet. One breath of diesel fumes from a passing bus, one breath of wood dust, one ray of sunshine. Scariness has little to do with actual danger (otherwise we'd ban horror films).

I repeat, the evacuation would have needed to prevent hundreds of deaths just to break even. It didn't. It won't. It was just a deadly horrible screw up resulting from the inevitable outcome of making judgements based on fear instead of quantitative assessment of actual risks.

Can vaccinations have deadly side effects? YES. But the deadly consequences of not vaccinating are far, far worse, so we call those who oppose vaccinations irrational and very, very dangerous. So it is with the anti-nuclear movement. Irrational and, as we can see from the outcome at Fukushima, very, very dangerous.

Noel,

Considering that 30 yrs on that at Chernobyl that radiation levels have decreased by about 99% and over 90% of the areas that were evacuated now have radiation levels so low that they are considered safe.

Iodine has a very short half life and makes up the majority of the radiation at Fukushima

Noel, one last point. Which is more dangerous? Internal emitters and the Fukushima evacuation zone or Australia? The Japanese melanoma rate is about 12 per 100,000 per annum and the Australian rate is about 37 per 100,000 per annum. So over 40 years, 100,000 people in Australia will get about 1000 extra melanoma skin cancers. Based on radiation estimates in the evacuation zone, it's far less of a cancer risk.

Sunshine is far more dangerous than the published levels of cs-137 contamination.

In reply to Shadow Minister an Geoff Russell
Just a couple of points as you both try once again to dazzle the readers with (inaccurate) science.
Radioactive iodine - it depends on which isotope you're talking about. Radioactive iodine 127 has a half-life of 15.7 million years,

As to Australia's rate of melanoma being so much greater than Japan's - this is such a red herring argument.
Natural UV radiation is the major cause of melanoma - hardly surprising that the continent (Australia) with the largest amount of sunshine has also a high rate of melanoma, while Japan, much cooler, has a low rate.
That has nothing to do with the kinds of cancer that are expected from the man made radiation from Cesium 137 from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe radioactive fallout.

It's simple Noel, living in Australia is more dangerous (higher risk of deadly cancer) than living in the Fukushima evacuation zone. Even if you don't drink, smoke or eat red meat. The increased risk due to sunshine is much bigger than the increased risk from living in the exclusion zone.

I can't understand why you have no compassion for these people and are in favour of keeping them from going home.

Noel, do you think that when a person dies in Qld of melanoma, their relatives run round saying "Gosh, that was lucky, thank God they didn't die from some radioisotope!"

Normal people say that if X raises your risk of death more than Y, that X is more dangerous than Y. So Aussie sunshine is more dangerous than the Fukushima exclusion zone.

Qld melanoma death rate is about 10 per 100,000 in men and 4 in women per year and in Japan 0.2 per 100,000 per annum for both. So moving to Qld is far more deadly than moving into the exclusion zone. The only difference is that you and your mates have scared the hell out of people about isotopes. Terrifying children, mortifying their parents, causing suicides, depression, mental anguish and an unnecessary evacuation.

Suppose evacuation standards were set as follows: "When the increased risk from radiation matches the melanoma risk of living on the Sunshine coast, we'll evacuate". That's a perfectly reasonable criterion and everybody would be back rebuilding their lives instead of homeless and traumatised.

NW,

You are the one peddling inaccuracies.

Iodine 127 may well have a half life of 15m years, but it is a tiny fraction of the radioactive product produced. Most other products decay far faster.

Please refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product

and especially

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Totalexternaldoseratecher.png

Which shows that radioactivity at points outside Chernobyl have radiation levels 1/100th of the level they were shortly after the accident, as has the risk of cancer etc.

Just a comment on exposure to sunlight (UVB and UVA.

Too little exposure.

Vitamin D deficiency (rickets in children, osteomalacia in adults).

A good model for Hormesis
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I-127 is a stable (non-radioactive) iodine isotope.